John Woo has been a staple in Chinese cinema leading to successful Hollywood hits. It's this kind of background that leads to collaboration between John Woo and Midway to create a game along the lines of a John Woo movie. With this being a John Woo game based on a John Woo movie, it only made sense to bring back the guy who really made the action come to life, Chow Yun-Fat. Providing the look for the character and the voice, Chow Yun-Fat helps bring the presentation to another level. This game, Stranglehold, is arguably one of the best games based off a movie although it's really not based on a real movie.

Stranglehold is another story featuring the famous Hong Kong inspector, Tequila Yuen. The game itself is a sequel to the 1992 Hong Kong film, "Hard Boiled". This time around, Tequila investigates a case of a kidnapped policeman. What follows is a series of events that will bring Tequila to the US, and provide some background of some of his relationships. Overall, the story is on par with any quality action movie plot.

Action in the game plays out in a third person perspective. Tequila will have access to several weapons, typically dropped by enemies, and there will be plenty of bad guys to kill. To make the action on par with the amazing action of John Woo movies, Tequila is able to pull of some of the best gun blazing moves around including sliding down a handrail and using a rolling tool case to pump some bullets into the bad guys. Making use of these Hollywood style moves will give you a rating when you kill a bad guy. The more spectacular the kill, the more points you receive.

Not only will your score improve by killing enemies in a stylish way (you get a scorecard at the end of the level), but you also fill up the bar used for Tequila time. There are two aspects of this Tequila Time. One is your traditional Bullet Time system that will slow down the action a la Max Payne which, funny enough, was based of John Woo movies. The second aspect is a gauge that has four abilities that become available once the gauge fills up. These abilities include a quick heal for Tequila, another being a precision shot providing max damage, a barrage that will give Tequila temporary invulnerability giving you time to cut loose without worry of being shot, and finally, a 360 attack that will kill all enemies on screen in a dramatic fashion. Finally, in certain points within the game, there will be a showdown. Tequila will face-off against several enemies and the perspective will change to an over the shoulder view. At this point, the left analog stick will move Tequila to avoid some very slow moving bullets, and the right stick will move around the reticule where you�ll have to shoot the enemies. Just more dramatic action to give the Hong Kong flair to the game.

Visually, the game really shines with the character models. The use of Chow Yun-Fat's face really does the job to keep the game looking like an action movie. Every level has plenty of detail creating a literal playground to pull off some great looking stunts. A downside to the graphics is that there are slowdowns here and there, especially when there are some big explosions.

At the helm of the voice actors is Chow Yun-Fat. He provides some quality voice acting keeping with the action movie style. Thankfully, he's not alone with providing quality voice acting in the game keeping the feel of true movie-like experience. The score plays well within the game making certain cut scenes even more dramatic. Finally, just like all good action movies, the sound effects have to be both loud and effective which is a proper description of the sound effects within the game.

Clocking in around 8-10 hours, Stranglehold is a game that supplies a lot of action in a short package. Even though you can play through the levels to improve on score, there's not a huge reason to replay the game. Although it has a multiplayer mode, it's obvious that multiplayer was not a focus with the developers. With just deathmatch and team deathmatch choices, there's not a big reason to play the game online, and the lack of players online since the game was released proves it.

Like I said, Stranglehold is one of the best games based on a movie although it's not a real movie. You can feel the tension in the cut scenes and there's plenty of gun action to go around. The downside to it all is that the gameplay is just not as good as it could be. A little more variety with the action and tightening up of controls could have really made the game one of the better games of the year.

Score - 8.2/10.0

- O.G.